On Thursday, the Utah State Aggies saw both sides of players transferring to be with their coaches from last season.
First, Aggies guard Rollie Worster announced in the morning that he will be joining Craig Smith at the University of Utah. Then in the afternoon, UMBC Retrievers forward Brandon Horvath announced he’ll follow new Aggies coach Ryan Odom to Logan.
Soon after Horvath announced his commitment, Utah announced that Worster is officially on its roster.
When reports surfaced April 8 that Worster would be entering the transfer portal, the chatter was that he would follow Smith to Utah. The best player in the state of Montana coming out of high school, Worster played in 26 games as a freshman for Utah State during the 2020-21 season, starting 25 at point guard (he missed three because of injury).
For the season, the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder averaged 9.1 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists per contest.
Worster becomes the third transfer guard to commit to Utah since the conclusion of the season. Former Cincinnati guard Gabe Madsen is officially on the Utes roster, as is former UNLV guard David Jenkins Jr. There could now be a logjam at point guard, as all indications are that Pelle Larsson and Rylan Jones plan to return next season.
As for Horvath, the 6-foot-10, 210-pound native of Maryland played four seasons for the Retrievers, appearing in 113 games. He started all 49 games he played in his last two seasons and for his career averaged 8.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. In the 2020-21 campaign, he averaged 13.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per contest.
Alphonso Anderson, Marco Anthony, Kuba Karwowski, Karson Stastny and Zahar Vedischev are players from Utah State’s roster last season who are still in the transfer portal, according to Verbal Commits. Jordan Kellier, Ian Martinez, Alfonso Plummer and Norbert Thelissen are Utes who remain in the portal.
On Thursday, college basketball insider Jon Rothstein reported that Odom will bring all of his assistant coaches with him to Utah State, Nate Dixon, Matt Henry and Bryce Crawford.